TOPIC: What Are the Best NEC Sound Fonts?

My Exhalted is currently off to a sabersmith for a Spark 2 install! I was just wondering what the best NEC formatted fonts are out there? I already purchased Shameem's Graflex TFA HD and made a custom Mario font for fun!
I'd like to find more fonts that take advantage of the available large sound banks in the NEC boards (99 sounds per effect). It seems a lot just have around 15 or so and was wondering if there's one that has even more sounds per effect and have a really great sound!
Please sound off with all of your favorites and recommendations!

I'm a big fan of Juansith's stuff on Saberfont.com, but I take the files and put them in the NEC format. I LOVE Graflex IV HD and Graflex V HD. I have one hilt with those two plus the TFA you already have from Shameem with an Arctic Blue LED and each font has a deeper blue than the last.

There is also a Skywalker ROTJ font by LordBlako that just rocks if you like the end of Return of the Jedi! The hum has the music from the movie in it....ah, so so good.

Do you just cut out the hum at the end of the files?

HotRod wrote:
How do you do that? Do you think you could do a guide?


In response to your post, Brady, my top NEC fonts right now are Form V: Shien Djem So, and Skywalker RotJ. Like HotRod said, when it ignites and plays the throne room duel music in the background, it feels incredible.

Borommakot wrote:
On that lightsaber form font, how are the voice lines utilized for NEC boards? Are they mixed in to other effects, or are they triggered seperately (like via an aux switch)? For Plector Labs boards I figured they could be combo sounds on the Crystal Focus.

I'd like to get Form VI: Niman (it has Satele Shan and Starkilller), but I didn't know how the voice ones would work, and I left a comment on Lord Blako's preview video of the font asking the same thing but he hasn't responded. I'd probably also swap out the ignition sound (it sounds like two separate sabers being ignited).

Brady329 wrote:
You may be asking about something here that I am unaware of. I will discuss below how I have done this.
Borommakot wrote:
So when you look at the SD Card files, you'll see folders for each font:

font1
font2
font3

Within those folders you'll see folders for the various sounds such as:

blst
clsh
hum
in
lock
out
slsh
swng

etc...

Let's say I get a font formatted for a Plectors Lab board. I just take the files I want for each, rename them to the appropriate name for that folder (for example, blast files would be blst01.wav, blst02.wav, etc) and then drop them in that folder.

I then go to Naigon's utility, and select File, Convert Audio Files and select all of the wav files I added and this will write the headers to them.

NEC sounds have to be wav files formatted with a sampling rate of 22050 hz and be mono. I have only had a few files for fonts from other boards not work (or If I create my own wav files which I will not claim to be good at). In that case, I will use an online tool to do the above conversions to the sound files. You can google "convert audio file to wav" and find a few tools.

I recently created a She-Ra sound font for a saber I built for my wife (she wants to do the review which is why I haven't done it). I just found the She-Ra opening and closing sounds, converted them to wav with an online utility (mono, 22050hz), and then named them "hum01.wav", "out01.wav", "in01.wav", etc and dropped them in those folders from an existing font I had. I then combined that with blaster and clash sounds from other fonts and it was done. It's not perfect, but she loved it.

I hope this answers your question and you find this helpful. When it comes to creating custom sounds, that's a bit out of my wheelhouse. I'm just using Quicktime on my mac to trim custom sounds, otherwise, I usually don't have to do any cutting at all.

Jaden Korr wrote:
Honestly, and this is where I get fuzzy, there is an FX (sound effect) folder for sound effects, but I do not know how they are mixed. The fonts I have gotten have the voice and other effects combined. So for example, I have a ANH Legends font that you constantly hear Darth Vader's breathing, but it's part of the hum. And on of the shut-down sounds have as the sound of the guy getting his arm cut off in the Cantina. It's all part of the file as I have seen it. There may be another way, but I have not learned it....yet.

HotRod wrote:
In your case, it seems like those sounds are already mixed into the hum/power off.

Basically I just wanted to know how that particular font utilized the voice lines before I bought it (whether they were mixed into other sounds or separate ones that replace blaster blocks or clashes). I get how the preview videos for the fonts on saberfont.com don't want to spend too long on any sound (so you can't just rip the sounds and use them for free), but most really don't explain exactly what you're getting, and quite a few don't even have a preview attached or even a description at all.

Super helpful, HotRod, thanks.

@Jaden

Sorry, I don't know, myself. I didn't want to hear any characters speaking, so I deleted all those sounds off my font.

That actually helps, since that tells me that they are separate sound files to begin with.

This probably carries over to the Plector version as well. Which again would be good to know, since that means the NBv3 wouldn't be able to use them (unless you replaced a swing or a clash sound, or mixed the voice lines into one of them).